Migration

To this day, behaviour research continues to be gruelling work. For example, chimpanzee researchers in Africa need to trek for hours every day through dense rainforest. It is only by arriving at the sleeping nests of a group of chimpanzees punctually at sunrise that they can accompany the animals during the day and document their behaviour. Then it's back to the camp every evening. This routine can continue for weeks at a time.

Even if not every species of animal is so difficult to observe - anyone who wants to get to know the natural behaviours of animals needs plenty of stamina, physical endurance and patience. Modern telemetry – the collection and evaluation of data using sensors – can make this arduous and time-consuming process largely superfluous. This marks a revolution for behaviour research and ecology, and Icarus is part of this revolution!

In future, the transmitters will be able to tell scientists much of what they previously found out only after hours of observation. While the transmitters record the data and relay it in real time via satellites, the researcher, in certain cases, is sitting thousands of kilometres away in his or her research lab and can start to analyse the measurement results straight away.

Icarus's objective is to make behavioural research and ecology more pleasant for the researchers. The progress made in telemetry also facilitates completely new insights into nature. For the first time, it will be possible to determine the location and movements of an animal in real time and on a large scale with thousands of animals.

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